


A Song of Ice

by Ocianne



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ocianne/pseuds/Ocianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of glimpses into the life and origins of Celes Chere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Song of Ice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madamebadger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamebadger/gifts).



 

“Celes!”

She finishes her set of jumps before abandoning the haphazardly drawn hopscotch grid and turning obediently toward Matron Iliana’s call. Jada, Prescott, and Karine continue the game without her without even a pause. Matron stands at the back door, waiting with a hint of impatience in the flat line of her lips and the tightness around her eyes.

“Coming, ma’am.” She walks head high, without apology for the extra few moments to finish what she’d started, or running to make up the time. The posture affords a view of the shadows behind Matron, in the house with too few windows and too few dim lights and never the funds for more. There’s a flash of white at the height a person would be, so pale as to seem a ghost.

...She’s not afraid of ghosts. Last winter Bernard dared her to stay in the haunted cellar, but all that happened was she nearly froze before Matron found her in the corner watching a spider make its web. This ghost, if it is one, seems friendly—as she gets close enough to see his face, he smiles at her. It’s hard to tell if it’s a nice smile because of the distracting vermillion painted on his lips and around his eyes.

“Celes,” Matron begins before she can cross the threshold, “this is Sir Kefka and Sir Leo.”

Behind the ghost-face, a tall, broad-shouldered and tanned teenager inclines his head in acknowledgment to her. She smiles back to both of them politely as Matron continues, “They might have a home to give you.”

“Sirs?” Hope rises unbidden, tales spun by the older children springing to mind, stories of food enough to eat until full and blankets that don’t scratch.

Sir Kefka, who is apparently not a ghost after all, looks her up and down. “Tell me, child. Would you like to be powerful?”

“—And to make the world a better place,” Sir Leo adds with his eyes darting to Kefka and then back to her.

She straightens. Both of those sound loads better than staying here. “Yes!”

Kefka gives an approving look. “You would have to do as you’re told by the people stronger than you.”

“Or in authority over you,” Sir Leo interjects again. “Like us, or Professor Cid.”

She cocks her head to the side. “What’s a professor?”

Sir Kefka does not answer first, this time, and Sir Leo supplies after a moment’s pause, “Someone who has studied and learned about the world, and continues to study or teach others.”

A professor sounds interesting, at least. Maybe he would teach her how to be strong. If she was strong, Fitz and his gang at school couldn’t keep bullying all of them for not having parents like him or clothes like him.

“I want to be strong.”

Sir Kefka’s smile _gleams_. “Good girl.”

* * *

The world is crystal.

Winter snowfall paints the Capital in shades of white and freezing cold, and frost sparkles outside on the window. She still remembers, in a hazy sort of way, what cold feels like. That memory is already starting to fade, along with all the others, of the unhappier time before they took her away and gave her a room of her own and Professor Cid made her special.

Her fingers trace against the glass, and the whiteness thickens at an infinitesimal pace along her patterns until a bird of ice stretches its wings grandly along the surface.

Special, but not strong. Not yet.

Sir Kefka says she’ll be strong when she can give orders and men will obey them. Sir Leo says she'll be strong when she can fight to protect the people she loves. ...He had to explain what 'love' meant after he said that. It's still a bit confusing, really. He says it will make more sense when she's older.

Sir Kefka and Sir Leo never seem to agree on anything. It’s hard to tell who is more right, sometimes. But for this, they both seem right enough to aspire to doing both.

“Celes?” Professor Cid’s voice, the only warning before the bedroom door opens to reveal him. Whatever he plans to say is derailed at the sight of her window, and he smiles brightly. “Splendid, splendid—tomorrow we should do some more tests, I’ll have to make a note of that, very important—but it will have to be tomorrow. Your tutor is here. Do your best, my dear girl; there’s still so much to teach you.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply before flitting away, already so focused on impending work in the research lab that he forgets to introduce the person who’d been hidden behind him. The dark young woman is perhaps a decade older than Sir Leo, but her brown eyes twinkle above a full-lipped smile. “It’s very nice to meet you, Celes. I am Professora Cass, but you may call me Miss Cass. I’m going to show you how big and interesting the world is.”

The world is already bigger and fuller than she’d dreamed of those few months ago, but Miss Cass’s smile is impossible to not return.

* * *

“Again.”

Sir Leo stands above her, sword tip hovering just above her own blade. Her palms are on fire from the relentless repetition of today’s practice, and she glares up at him from her spot on the ground. He matches her gaze calmly, unfazed.

“Again.”

“I can’t!” Her bones ache from falling; her knees are bruised; her throat is raw from breathing hard.

He looks at her. For a moment his eyes seem to soften a fraction, but it doesn’t last. “You can. Any fighter can pick up a sword and become good. It is the ones who lose and start again with determination who become great.”

You wanted to be strong, he does not add. She hears it clearly anyway.

Her sword scrapes the ground as she picks it up, wobbling slightly on her feet. The point weaves slightly in its aim toward him, hands throbbing as they grip together. Sir Leo waits until she finds her form, and then smiles with pride glinting in his eyes. “En guarde, begin.”

* * *

“Again.” Pender is her age, not yet in the throes of puberty, but hasn’t the same amount of training. He’s not at her level, and now he and the other knights-in-training (mostly boys, a handful of girls, and Talyn and Moya both go by zhe) watching from the edges of the sparring ring know it.

“Are you _crazy_?” His voice cracks a little as it rises, and he nurses fingers stinging from the force of being disarmed.

"I plan to become a knight. And you?" She lets her gaze flick across him, dismissive, challenging. He doesn't rise to the bait; instead he rips off the sparring pads with a curse and storms out of the hall.

In the breathless silence that follows, a flash of red-and-white appears in the opposite corner, next to Sir Leo's supervising eye. Is it...?

Risking a second glance confirms the presence of Sir Kefka, and without hesitation she shifts into a crisp salute. The others turn at varying speeds of curiosity and then nearly trip over themselves to follow suit. Sir Kefka may not outrank Sir Leo, but Sir Kefka demands respect without latitude for familiarity from those of lesser status. (Sir Leo has comrades in arms; Sir Kefka has lackeys. Sir Leo seems the better of the two, for now, but Sir Kefka’s tactic is better than neither.)

Sir Kefka steps forward with a smirk. “Very well done. So well, in fact, that I think you could match Leo. Do you think you can, Celes?”

Her spine straightens reflexively. “Sir? I’m a decent spar, sir, but...” Sir Leo is a legend, and not only for his ability to control lightning.

Sir Kefka smiles. "Show me."

Sir Leo darts a disapproving glance in Sir Kefka’s direction, but then meets her eyes and steps forward, an implicit invitation to take up the spar if she cares to accept. She nods, returns his sword salute, and settles into a ready stance as two other candidates scramble to move Pender's abandoned gear.

"Begin," Sir Kefka announces, and the world telescopes into focus on nothing but Sir Leo and his sword. Let it flash forward, dodge and spin and counter at the dizzying speed of instinct and muscle memory. There's no time to savor the flicker of surprise on his face at a move she's been practicing alone for weeks, a counter she falls back on in a desperate attempt to win. It fails, but only barely, amid the muddle of strikes and dodges and not a single wasted movement. When she finally hits the floor with Sir Leo's blunted practice sword hovering above her throat to prevent her from rising again, the sight of him breathing hard for the first time in memory is at least a consolation prize.  

A better consolation comes two days later, when Emperor Gestahl himself knights her with full honors, and says that he expects even greater things from her in the future.

"I expect no less of myself, sir."

It's not until she's a full general and tasked with burning the town of Maranda for resistance, not until she sees another girl her age wearing an ancient artifact that steals away her own thoughts, that Celes begins to doubt if "great" is the same as "right".

When she voices those doubts to the emperor and is summarily vanished into a dungeon with no hope of release or escape, she concludes that the emperor—or Sir Kefka, or both—is power-hungry beyond the bounds of sanity, and she was never anything more than a tool. The realization leaves her colder than she's ever been.

The cold doesn't fade until a mere thief shows her charity, offers protection even though it’s unnecessary. Until she meets the other girl again outside of Magitek armor, in the thief’s merry company of friends, and there is fire in her eyes as she smiles shyly and introduces herself as ‘Terra’. With them, Celes can stand in the name of good as well as that of strength, and even the snow-fields of Narshe feel warm.


End file.
